Summer II. Traveling + transcendence + design porn

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: I. Time regained

I have been spending a week in Somerset. The right June weather put me in the mind for rambling, and my thoughts turned to the Severn Sea. I went to Glastonbury and Wells, and on to Cheddar, and so to the shore of the Channel at Clevedon, remembering my holiday of fifteen years ago, and too often losing myself in a contrast of the man I was then and what I am now. Beautiful beyond all words of description that nook of oldest England; but that I feared the moist and misty winter climate, I should have chosen some spot below the Mendips for my home and resting-place.  Unspeakable the charm to my ear of those old names; exquisite the quiet of those little towns, lost amid tilth and pasture, untouched as yet by the fury of modern life, their ancient sanctuaries guarded, as it were, by noble trees and hedges overrun with flowers. In all England there is no sweeter and more varied prospect than that from the hill of the Holy Thorn at Glastonbury; in all England there is no lovelier musing place than the leafy walk beside the Palace Moat at Wells. As I think of the golden hours I spent there, a passion to which I can give no name takes hold upon me; my heart trembles with an indefinable ecstasy...

As a child I used to sleep in a room hung round with prints after English landscape painters -- those steel engravings so common half a century ago... Perhaps... that early memory explains why I love a good black-and-white print even more than a good painting. And -- to draw yet another inference -- here may be a reason for the fact that, through my youth and early manhood, I found more pleasure in nature represented by art than in nature herself... It is a passion [for nature] -- Heaven be thanked -- that grows with my advancing years. The last thought of my brain as I lie dying will be that of sunshine upon an English meadow.

Alpha.

I wonder if that really was his last thought. Doubtful, but who knows. I can think of worse last thoughts. In general, I’m opposed to an obsession with transcendence, with meditation to free oneself from this mundane reality. Here’s a quote from Waking Up by Sam Harris:

The feeling that we call “I” is an illusion. There is no discrete self or ego living like a Minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. And the feeling that there is—the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from yourself—can be altered or entirely extinguished. Although such experiences of “self-transcendence” are generally thought about in religious terms, there is nothing, in principle, irrational about them. From both a scientific and a philosophical point of view, they represent a clearer understanding of the way things are. Deepening that understanding, and repeatedly cutting through the illusion of the self, is what is meant by “spirituality” in the context of this book.

I give spiritual people credit for at least concerning themselves with profound rather than superficial thoughts, but this eagerness to transcend the self and to achieve a deeper experience of reality is also a slap in the face of life. Another quote from Sam Harris:

With practice, mindfulness becomes a well-formed habit of attention, and the difference between it and ordinary thinking will become increasingly clear. Eventually, it begins to seem as if you are repeatedly awakening from a dream to find yourself safely in bed. No matter how terrible the dream, the relief is instantaneous. And yet it is difficult to stay awake for more than a few seconds at a time.

My friend Joseph Goldstein, one of the finest vipassana teachers I know, likens this shift in awareness to the experience of being fully immersed in a film and then suddenly realizing that you are sitting in a theater watching a mere play of light on a wall. Your perception is unchanged, but the spell is broken. Most of us spend every waking moment lost in the movie of our lives.

Better to dream than to realize a perfect state of mindfulness -- though so many of the people I see or communicate with could benefit from a little more mindfulness. Mindfulness in moderation, perhaps.

But on my deathbed I suspect my concern will be less where I’ve been and more where I’m going. So here, at least, transcendence really ought to be the order of the day. Rather than your life flashing before your eyes, I would rather see my future. Perhaps some previous experience with meditation would make it easier for me to slip away when the time comes? Perhaps there is a sort of tantric meditation where you go through the motions, as it were, but not to transcendental orgasm. Until the very end. Now that would be a Happy Ending.

Beta.

One problem with being “retired,” or even semi-retired, is that it becomes difficult to escape your routine. How do you take a break from doing next to nothing? Today I rode the bus over the long bridge to California. By which I mean a nearby “city” that is more like the rest of California in being warmer and sunnier and where the built environment was designed with cars, not people, in mind. It also is the closest place with the kind of bookstore that has a massive magazine stand, where you can select a bunch of glossy design porn magazines and take them to the cafe to peruse at your leisure. And their snacks are not bad either.

Today their selection of architecture, design, and decorating magazines was pretty underwhelming... but good enough. No Habitus, for example (a stunning looking magazine from Australia that usually also features interesting houses.) Most of the magazines today were domestic, not my favorite Brit and Australian magazines. Not even any Italian magazines, though those are usually problematic anyway.

As much as I love looking at these periodicals, and the houses (and other projects) in them, I can’t imagine spending the money and time that these clients lavish on their houses. In a single magazine I might love three different houses or apartments that could not be more different. I always wonder what the clients think as they see their lovely new digs in this public way next to other stunning examples of design. Do any of them think, “Wow, look at what they did. I think I like that better.”

Before I catch the bus back I’m going to have dinner in the kind of restaurant I never frequent at home. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just the kind of chain place you can find all over Generica. It will be fine in an nondescript sort of way -- appropriate for my holiday.

Next: Summer III. Izaak Walton.

Summer I. Time regained

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Spring XXV. The end of spring

To-day, as I was reading in the garden, a waft of summer perfume -- some hidden link of association in what I read -- I know not what it may have been -- took me back to school-boy holidays: I recovered with strange intensity that lightsome mood of long release from tasks, of going away to the seaside, which is one of childhood’s blessings. I was in the train; no rushing express, such as bears you great distances; the sober train which goes to no place of importance, which lets you see the white steam of the engine float and fall upon a meadow ere you pass. Thanks to a good and wise father, we youngsters saw nothing of seaside places where crowds assemble; I am speaking; too, of a time more than forty years ago, when it was still possible to find on the coasts of northern England, east or west, spots known only to those who loved the shore for its beauty and its solitude. At every station the train stopped; little stations, decked with beds of flowers, smelling warm in the sunshine where country-folk got in with baskets, and talked in an unfamiliar dialect, an English which to us sounded almost like a foreign tongue. Then the first glimpse of the sea; the excitement of noting whether the tide was high or low -- stretches of sand and weedy pools, or halcyon wavelets frothing at their furthest reach, under the sea-banks starred with convolvulus. Of a sudden, our station!

Ah, that taste of the brine on a child’s lips! Nowadays, I can take holiday when I will, and go whithersoever it please me; but that salt kiss of the sea air I shall never know again. My senses are dulled; I cannot get so near to nature; I have a sorry dread of her clouds, her wind, and must walk with tedious circumspection where once I ran and leapt exultingly... I can but look at what I once enjoyed.

Alpha.

Swann’s Way, the first volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time was published (at the author’s expense) in 1913. Both Gissing, in Ryecroft, and Proust played repeatedly with this idea of the past being brought to mind by one thing or another. Proust was more determined in hunting down and articulating the triggers and process of this phenomenon. The mechanism is perhaps not so important as the result -- but I think Proust is right in emphasizing taste and smell as having the most profound affect on reviving our memories.

Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines, hidden under the weedy mass of many years and experiences. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once, A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.

-Diane Ackerman A Natural History of the Senses

I spent my earliest childhood years in the hot and humid heart of America, in a region defined by great rivers. Ever since, I have lived in the arid to Mediterranean West. On the rare occasions when some meteorological anomaly gives us a hot and humid day -- with perhaps a rain shower falling on steaming asphalt -- I am transported back in time to my childhood in a most powerful way. Not only do I remember the street and the houses, but also a hint of the feeling of being the child I was then, when this block of an old, but ordinary, suburban street was my whole world. I wonder then what’s become of the girl who was my best friend then -- who, I’m sad to say, I never think of otherwise.

In all of these instances, I think we recall ourselves, not a child we once were. It is Proust burying his face in his aunt’s quilt, Gissing (I’m guessing) recalling the sea air, and me wondering about my friend and hoping the gas station on the corner still has an Orange Crush in the old coffin-style soft drink dispensing machine.

Beta.

I finally gave up on my old cell phone today and bought its replacement. With these phones you usually have the option of saving your address book to the SIM card. I imagined that you could then transfer your information to a new phone along with the SIM card -- and perhaps, if the new phone is identical with the old, that does work. But it didn’t in my case. So all my information needs to be re-entered. And the phone’s interface seems to have been designed to punish you for buying an amazingly cheap device. Fair enough, I suppose -- though I hardly use the thing so I feel no urge to spend more than $17.

As always with these modern marvels, the manual describes a plethora of features I will never use. You’d think they might punish you for being thrifty by only giving you a few, easy to use features. But apparently not. Still, the tiny thing is an awkward calculator, a dubious alarm clock and timer, a tedious calendar, and a memo pad of doubtful value, in addition to its voice and text communication capabilities. I can remember when I would have paid much more for a device that could have done any of these things just as badly. And, as a person who remembers telephone party-lines, the basic voice and text capabilities still amaze me.

I just hope this phone doesn’t end up going through the washer like the last one did -- but that was many years ago.

Postscript: Alas, alas! I thought the little wonder had survived it's bath unharmed but the "1" key rarely works now. Perhaps it will recover with time and use? But probably not.

Next: Summer II. Traveling.

Spring XXV. The end of spring + Prometheus

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: XXIV. Walking in the country

Walking in a favourite lane to-day, I found it covered with shed blossoms of the hawthorn. Creamy white, fragrant even in ruin, lay scattered the glory of May. It told me that spring is over.

Have I enjoyed it as I should? Since the day that brought me freedom, four times have I seen the year’s new birth, and always, as the violet yielded to the rose, I have known a fear that I had not sufficiently prized this boon of heaven whilst it was with me. Many hours I have spend shut up among my books, when I might have been in the meadows. Was the gain equivalent? Doubtfully, diffidently, I hearken what the mind can plead.

... As I turn to summer, a misgiving mingles with my joy.

Alpha.

This description of nature in the spring, reminds me of similar passages in -- wait for it -- The Magic Mountain. They serve to mark the seasons and the passage of time but also to celebrate nature in an almost Romantic manner. Both Mann and Gissing differ from Annie Dillard, in Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, in that they only gloss the beauties of nature (I will have to confirm this as I read) and not the darker side. Dillard (and Sallie Tisdale, I’m thinking of her The Sutra of Maggots and Blowflies in the book The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death) uses insects to show the immorality of nature and our distance, as humans, from that state of nature that we can only see as darkness.  

Beta.

The divide between the humane and the natural is, I think, related to the crisis of individuation -- that we are conscious of ourselves as existing outside nature. Nietzsche is focused on this problem throughout The Birth of Tragedy, it is the reason we humans are tragic and why we are in need of tragedy and Dionysian healing. This can be viewed either in Classical (Promethean) terms -- Prometheus either created us as demi-gods to thwart the gods of Olympus or (myths always have multiple versions) he stole and gave us a Divine Spark that achieves the same thing. It was for this crime that his liver was perpetually on the menu, though it is unclear to me if Zeus or mankind was more injured by this “gift”  --  or you can view it in Christian terms:

How men torment themselves is all I see.                                  280

The little god of Earth sticks to the same old way,

And is as strange as on that very first day.

He might appreciate life a little more: he might,

If you [God] hadn’t lent him a gleam of Heavenly light:

He calls it Reason, but only uses it                                             285

To be more a beast than any beast as yet.

-Mephistopheles - Goethe’s Faust

Again, I’m confused by this quote as Goethe seems to steal from Satan the credit for giving man this doubtful gift, for what else is the “knowledge of good and evil?” Of course he does put this in Mephisto’s mouth, and you really can’t trust that guy. But the rule with myths and poetry seems to be that you can just make anything up as you go along.

Next: Summer I. Time regained.

Spring XXIII. Silence

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: XXII. Literary journals a poor mirror

Every morning when I wake, I thank heaven for silence. This is my orison. I remember the London days when sleep was broken by clash and clang, by roar and shriek, and when my first sense on returning to consciousness was hatred of the life about me. Noises of wood and metal, clattering of wheels, banging of implements, jangling of bells -- all such things are bad enough, but worse still is the clamorous human voice...

Here, wake at what hour I may, early or late, I lie amid gracious stillness. Perchance a horse’s hoof rings rhythmically upon the road; perhaps a dog barks from a neighbour farm; it may be that there comes the far, soft murmur of a train from the other side of Exe; but these are almost the only sounds that could force themselves upon my ear. A voice, at any time of the day, is the rarest thing.

But there is the rustle of branches in the morning breeze; there is the music of a sunny shower against the window; there is the matin song of birds. Several times lately I have lain wakeful when there sounded the first note of the earliest lark; it makes me almost glad of my restless nights.... Year after year this spot has known the same tranquillity; with ever so little of good fortune, with ever so little wisdom, beyond what was granted me, I might have made for myself in later life a long retrospect of bowered peace. As it is, I enjoy with something of sadness, remembering that this melodious silence is but the prelude of that deeper stillness which waits to enfold us all.

Alpha.

Just last night, after drinking rather more than I’m used to, I woke up in the middle of the night (one reason I rarely drink that much). I decided I should probably take the opportunity to hydrate, so I went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water before returning to bed. Lying there, I was struck by the total silence. I had no idea how long I had been asleep, though I knew I had gone to bed after Midnight. It occurred to me that I could probably guess the time by the degree of silence. The city is still quieting down until after 1am, with the final cable cars returning laboriously to their barn. After 4am the city starts to wake up. There is the surprisingly noticeable sound of individual automobiles venturing out to jobs that start really early, followed by the daily sounds of garbage toters rolling around from curb to truck and back. On extremely rare occasions the doves in the garden will start making a subdued racket for reasons known only to them.

I estimated the time as between 2 and 4am. A quick check of my alarm clock showed the actual time to be 3:15 -- deep in the heart of the most silent period of this urban night.

Beta.

“Anything from Sara Maitland’s book, The Book of Silence, I want to use here?” This was my note to myself. But when I review my notes from that book I don't know where to start. This is one of the most confused and confusing books I've ever read. For starters, after reading the book (important sections twice) I still have no idea what she means by “Silence.” In the course of the book she does seek out places that are very quiet, but she also spends an infuriating amount of time driving an automobile around Scotland seeking silence. Sometimes I think she means “Stillness” or “Solitude” but then she mentions that she is also a “voice hearer” (there is reference to an “Exeter Voice Hearing Group” that compels me to imagine them dressed as Morris dancers). She never actually says it, but I have to wonder if the “silence” she seeks is from the voices in her head.

But when she isn't annoying the hell out of me, she is very interesting when it comes to the origin of English words and she introduced me to the words “outwith” and “accidie.” She also suggests that there are at least three meanings of “silence.” The Romantics saw silence (or at least a retreat from the urban hubbub to the calm of the countryside) as a means of connecting with your creative self so that you could do productive artistic work. Kenotic silence involves the “self-emptying” of one’s own will to become entirely receptive to God and the divine will. Eremitic silence is similar to Kenotic in that it is “not concerned with the temporal world or swayed by mundane considerations...”

Maitland, as near as I can tell, wanted all the above. She wanted a little peace while getting in touch with her creative, literary “voice” while also becoming receptive to God... coming into cosmic harmony. Her success was limited.

Next: Spring XXIV. Walking in the country.

Spring XXII. Literary journals a poor mirror

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: XXI. Bird song

Were one to look at the literary journals only, and thereafter judge of the time, it would be easy to persuade oneself that civilization had indeed made great and solid progress, and that the world stood at a very hopeful stage of enlightenment. Week after week, I glance over these pages of crowded advertisement; I see a great many publishing-houses zealously active in putting forth every kind of book, new and old; I see names innumerable of workers in every branch of literature. Much that is announced declares itself at once of merely ephemeral import, or even of no import at all; but what masses of print which invite the attention of thoughtful or studious folk! To the multitude is offered a long succession of classic authors, in beautiful form, at a minimum cost; never were such treasures so cheaply and so gracefully set before all who can prize them... Here is exhibited the learning of the whole world and of all the ages; be a man’s study what it will, in these columns, at one time or another he shall find that which appeals to him. Here are labours of the erudite, exercised on every subject that falls within learning’s scope. Science brings forth its newest discoveries in earth and heaven; it speaks to the philosopher in his solitude, and to the crowd in the market-place. Curious pursuits of the mind at leisure are represented in publications numberless; trifles and oddities of intellectual savour; gatherings from every byway of human interest...

With these pages before one’s eyes, must one not needs believe that things of the mind are a prime concern of our day? Who are the purchasers of these volumes ever pouring from the press? How is it possible for so great a commerce to flourish save as a consequence of national eagerness in this intellectual domain? ...

Two things must be remembered. However considerable this literary traffic, regarded by itself, it is relatively of small extent. And, in the second place, literary activity is by no means an invariable proof of that mental attitude which marks the truly civilized man.

... No, the public which reads, in any sense of the word worth considering, is very, very small; the public which would feel no lack if all book-printing ceased to-morrow, is enormous. These announcements of learned works which strike one as so encouraging, are addressed, as a matter of fact, to a few thousand persons, scattered all over the english-speaking world. Many of the most valuable books slowly achieve the sale of a few hundred copies...

... Experience offers proof on every hand that vigorous mental life may be but one side of a personality, of which the other is moral barbarism. A man may be a fine archaeologist, and yet have no sympathy with human ideals. The historian, the biographer, even the poet, may be a money-market gambler, a social toady, a clamorous Chauvinist, or an unscrupulous wire-puller... The reading-public -- oh, the reading-public! Hardly will a prudent statistician venture to declare that one in every score of those who actually read sterling books do so with comprehension of their author... Remember those who purchase to follow fashion, to impose upon their neighbor, or even to flatter themselves; think of those who wish to make cheap presents, and those who are merely pleased by the outer aspect of the volume. Above all, bear in mind that busy throng whose zeal is according neither to knowledge nor to conviction, the host of the half-educated, characteristic and peril of our time...

I am told that their semi-education will be integrated. We are in a transitional stage, between the bad old time when only a few had academic privileges, and that happy future which will see all be liberally instructed. Unfortunately for this argument, education is a thing of which only the few are capable; teach as you will, only a small percentage will profit by your most zealous energy. On an ungenerous soil it is vain to look for rich crops. Your average mortal will be your average mortal still: and if he grow conscious of power, if he becomes vocal and self-assertive, if he get into his hands all the material resources of the country, why, you have a state of things such as at present looms menacingly before every Englishman blessed -- or cursed -- with an unpopular spirit.

Alpha.

Things are far worse now than they were over a hundred years ago, and much of the doom he here predicts has come to pass. U.S. election results for the past several decades are all you need in the way of proof for this.

I rather suspect Ryecroft would lump me in with the “half-educated,” and I wouldn’t argue with him as mostly “self-educated” really comes to the same thing. The reason people with a Classical Education studied the Athenian Demos and the Roman Republic, for all the good it did them, was so that they could learn from the experience of a thousand years of aristocratic, democratic, and republican government. When the 2nd Bush administration announced its plan to invade Iraq all I could think of was Athens and its disastrous (and equally needless) invasion of Syracuse. It’s hard to say which body politic comes off worse: the Athenians for being so venial; or the Americans for being so easily lead by their fears. But it's worth noting that then, as now, it is the few who lead the many astray, who use the many against their own personal enemies and for their own personal power. An important lesson of the history of those Classical times is that both the Athenians and Romans were fooled into giving up their popular rule... and it’s hard to say, given the poor job they were doing at the time, that giving up was a mistake.

The Iraq invasion also reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Aeschylus:

Who can escape the sin ordained by God?

-Aeschylus - Seven Against Thebes

Next: Spring XXIII. Silence.

Spring XXI. Bird song + consonance

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: XX. Art

All about my garden to-day the birds are loud. To say that the air is filled with their song gives no idea of the ceaseless piping, whistling, trilling, which at moments rings to heaven in a triumphant unison, a wild accord.  Now and then I notice one of the smaller songsters who seems to strain his throat in a madly joyous endeavour to outcarol all the rest. It is a chorus of praise such as none other of earth’s children have the voice or the heart to utter. As I listen, I am carried away by its glorious rapture; my being melts in the tenderness of an impassioned joy; my eyes are dim with I know not what profound humility.

Alpha.

Here I can not really compete with Ryecroft’s world. Our wrens and sparrows are more chatterers than songsters. Our pigeons and seagulls add nothing in the way of music while our crows, while loud, are fairly disagreeable. Even our old standby doves are, while not unpleasant, rather monotonous.  Our parrots are, if anything, worse than the crows. The occasionally heard cry of the hawks that soar perpetually over park and tower alike, while stirring, is a weak basis for rapture.

Beta.

I was struck in this passage by Gissing’s use of the word “accord.”  For one thing, "wild accord" suggests both the overall consonance of the birdsong in his garden and also the life affirming quality all that sound implies or creates in the heart of the person listening. 

Obviously accord/discord are mirror terms, closely related to consonance/dissonance. Both sets have both a musical and a metaphorical meaning the profoundness of which I frequently struggle to grasp. Muriel Barbery, in The Elegance of the Hedgehog first got me really thinking about this

Beauty is consonance is a sublime thought... aesthetics are really nothing more than an intuition to the Way of Consonance, a sort of Way of the Samurai applied to the intuition of authentic forms. We all have a knowledge of harmony, anchored deep within. It is this knowledge that enables us, at every instant, to apprehend quality in our lives and, on the rare occasions when everything is in perfect harmony, to appreciate it with the apposite intensity... those who feel inspired... by the greatness of small things will pursue them to the very heart of the essential where, cloaked in everyday attire, this greatness will emerge from within a certain ordering of ordinary things and from the certainty that all is as it should be, the conviction that it is fine this way.

-Renee, p 165 - The Elegance of the Hedgehog

That Barbery uses “consonance” (what is primarily a musical term contrasted with dissonance) in this way is interesting because the history of western music has seen a trend toward the acceptance of ever greater levels of dissonance in music. You could say that today, the music we experience as beautiful is spiced with levels of dissonance that would have been objectionable a thousand, or even a hundred years ago.

I am not well enough educated in musicology to know what is and isn’t dissonance in the technical sense, but I think it’s something you know when you hear it for the most part. But I may be stretching the term when I use it with respect to jazz and rock. But, having said all that, I think the history of jazz since WW2 is a good example of the acceptance of -- even the craving for -- ever greater levels of dissonance. The saxophone playing of Johnny Hodges...

...is the epitome of consonance while the playing of Charlie Parker...

...and John Coltrane introduced heightened levels of at least figurative dissonance. The same phenomenon is at work in the piano playing of Bill Evans...

...and the playing and music of Thelonious Monk...

But the most striking example of this trend is in the playing of the electric guitar. I’m not sure that people in the past would even recognize the playing of Santana, Jimmy Page, Hendrix, or Eric Clapton as music. Here's one of my favorite examples of this new sound, Hendrix's Little Wing played by Stevie Ray Vaughan...

So saying that “Beauty is consonance,” while probably true, doesn’t explain what an acceptable mixture of consonance and dissonance might be. Also, it doesn’t explain why certain sounds -- or certain patches of color on canvas -- appear to us as consonant in the first place. You could also see wabi-sabi as a recognition of the limits of consonance and the need for some touch of dissonance.

(Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.”)

...great works are the visual forms which attain in us the certainty of timeless consonance... our eye locates the form that will elicit a feeling of consonance, the one particular thing in which everyone can find the very essence of beauty, without variations or reservations, context or effort.

-Renee, p 201 - The Elegance of the Hedgehog

And then Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, pushed me even further. The notion, derived from String Theory, of the universe and all its “particles” and waves as a sort of cosmic music, pushes me further still. I will come back to this in the future.

What interests me most, I think, is the value of dissonance... and also discord. If you think of God as the cosmic author or artist, then discord is an essential tool in her arsenal. Without discord there is no story.

Here’s a quote from Dr. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and co-inventor of String theory:

The latest version of String Theory is called M-Theory, “M” for membrane. So we now realize that strings can coexist with membranes. So the subatomic particles we see in nature, the quark, the electrons are nothing but musical notes on a tiny vibrating string.

What is physics?

Physics is nothing but the laws of harmony that you can write on vibrating strings.

What is chemistry?

Chemistry is nothing but the melodies you can play on interacting vibrating strings.

What is the universe?

The universe is a symphony of vibrating strings.

And then what is the mind of God that Albert Einstein eloquently wrote about for the last 30 years of his life?

We now, for the first time in history have a candidate for the mind of God. It is, cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.

We are nothing but melodies. We are nothing but cosmic music played out on vibrating strings and membranes. Obeying the laws of physics, which is nothing but the laws of harmony of vibrating strings.

Next: Spring XXII. Literary journals a poor mirror.